A mirror to see ourselves

DR ERROL NARINE BENJAMIN

IN SHAKESPEARE’S Julius Caesar, Cassius, in attempting to persuade Brutus to join the conspiracy against Caesar, would seek to be Brutus’s mirror so that he, Brutus, could better understand his “passions of some difference” as regards the possible dictatorship of Caesar, as the following abridged conversation illustrates:

Cassius: Tell me, good Brutus, can you see your face?

Brutus: No Cassius; for the eye sees not itself/But by reflection, by some other things...

Cassius: Therefore, good Brutus, be prepar’d to hear...And since you know that you cannot see yourself/So well as by reflection, I, your glass/Will modestly discover you to yourself/That of yourself you yet know not of...(Act I Sc2 51-53, 65-70).

With the election bell rung and the country virtually on the brink, like with Cassius for Brutus, we as a people must find a mirror and take a hard look at ourselves and our mindset in the politics, and whether this time around we would make the intelligent choices that would stave off this impending collapse.

For only the blind who refuse to see would deny the real possibility of the latter with crime out of control with no end in sight, and our economy in an impending state of collapse with the rampaging Trump administration in the US striking at our very lifeblood in oil and gas.

For what has been our mindset in the politics but to vote, not out of our concern for the competence of those who should lead this country, but simply because they look like us, for by doing so we stave off the perceived enemy which is the other side, and at the same time access the “mess of pottage” to be had for our unquestioning loyalty. And those whom we elect know this and they exploit this unquestioning loyalty to the fullest to sustain themselves in office, not having to account for their stewardship.

But how did we get into this vicious cycle of “you scratch my back and I yours?” It is because of our history as an evolving people. From the very beginning in the colonial era the two major groups, African and Indian, were pitted against each other, with the freed blacks looking with suspicion at the incoming indentures as a threat to their bargaining power with their former masters, the planter class (Ralph Premdas, Ethnicity, Identity and Culture in the Caribbean).

And this antipathy during the colonial era would become institutionalised after independence in two race-based parties, the PNM for Africans and the DLP/UNC for East Indians. Evolving from this race-based politics is the voting according to tribe, and this seems to have become our mindset ad infinitum.

So, with the whole electioneering charade on both sides of the divide in full swing, can we hope for an intelligent choice based on competent leadership for the good of the country as a whole, or should we expect the same old, same old?

Addiction, which is an apt description of our voting by race, is difficult to shed, but are there any mirrors to make us see our true selves and so dissuade us from this anomaly?

The talk of unity among some groups is inspiring, remembering 1986, but is it merely a pick-up side for convenience? Mickela Panday is worth the effort if only for a new face giving renewed hope, not to mention her roots which have contributed significantly to our politics.

The old brigade is hardly worth a glance for they are the ones who have spawned this voting by race, which we must escape if we are to move forward as a people.

But there is an interesting editorial in the Newsday of March 16 which speaks of the newly appointed Prime Minister’s focus on “integrity, inclusion and accountability," and of “cultural diversity,” and our country’s “multicultural fabric," which seems to be the kind of language antithetical to this disease of tribal voting which has kept this country down, and more significantly coming from the mouth of one reportedly of mixed ancestry.

Is this the mirror which can make us see ourselves or are they just words?

I leave the answer to you.